Regret Over a Drone’s Deadly Damage - NYT Editorial
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For years, the Obama administration has kept its drone strikes shrouded in great secrecy, knowing that what have been described as precision attacks on terrorist targets have also killed innocent civilians. So it was important to see candor and remorse from President Obama in his apology for the killing of two Al Qaeda hostages, an American and an Italian, in a drone strike near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in January.
“It is a cruel and bitter truth that in the fog of war generally and our fight against terrorists specifically, mistakes — sometimes deadly mistakes — can occur,” President Obama said on Thursday. “One of the things that makes us exceptional is our willingness to confront squarely our imperfections and to learn from our mistakes.”
The deaths of Warren Weinstein, an American development expert, and Giovanni Lo Porto, an Italian aid worker, were a disturbing reminder of the unintended consequences of an execution program of questionable legality. The administration sought to reduce the room for error in 2013, when Mr. Obama instructed the Central Intelligence Agency, which authorized the January strike, to make sure with “near certainty” that imminent strikes would not put civilians in harm’s way.
The stricter criterion was adopted in response to growing evidence that drone strikes have killed dozens of noncombatants. The Open Society Foundations said in a report in November that American drone strikes in Pakistan have killed more than 2,000 people, including an undetermined number of civilians. Drone strikes in Yemen have also killed civilians. Their use in both countries has incited deep resentment toward the United States.
The administration’s account of the January strike also raises serious questions about just how much information intelligence officers have before dropping bombs into remote areas by hitting a switch half a world away.
Besides the two hostages, the strike killed Ahmed Farouq, an American citizen accused of having played a leading role in an Al Qaeda franchise in India. The White House also disclosed on Thursday that Adam Gadahn, an American who was a Qaeda spokesman, is believed to have been killed in a separate strike, also in January. Officials said that neither of the American Qaeda members was deliberately targeted.
“These and other recent strikes in which civilians were killed make clear that there is a significant gap between the relatively stringent standards the government says it’s using and the standards that are actually being used,” Jameel Jaffer, the deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement.
Drone strikes might be a tool of last resort to hunt down terrorists in areas where local governments are unwilling or unable to pursue them. But the risks involved in their use are high. Along with Mr. Obama’s apology, the administration says it will provide compensation to the Weinstein and Lo Porto families. The handling of this case stands in contrast to the silence it usually maintains about the civilian victims of drone strikes.
Mr. Obama has promised an independent review of the January attack. While that’s important, the White House should go further to provide a fuller accounting of what it knows about the number of civilians killed by the drone-based counterterrorism campaign.
That information is critical to having an informed debate about the merits of the program and how it is carried out.
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Strikes like the one that killed two American hostages have forced militant leaders to regroup and seek shelter, analysts say.
The American was an al Qaeda hostage when he was unintentionally killed by a U.S. drone strike
Intelligence analysts never detected they were at site of drone strike that killed them
A new web series, "Do Not Track," pulls back the digital curtain how your online life is monitored, manipulated and monetized
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Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov on Thursday ordered his troops to "shoot to kill" if they encountered any unauthorized Russian forces on the territory of the small republic in the volatile North Caucasus region.
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In celebration of the 70th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany and on the eve of the anniversary of the meeting of Soviet and American troops on the Elbe, the Carnegie Moscow Center organized a conference held April 23, 2015 in Moscow to discuss the experience of Russian-American alliance during the Second World War, as well as the experience of cooperation and rivalry after the end of the Cold War. The Elbe meeting took place on April 25, 1945.
Kevin Ryan, brigadier general (retired), director of the Belfer Center's Defense and Intelligence Projects, delivered comments in Russian about the significance of the Elbe anniversary to U.S.-Russian relations today. The Russian remarks and English translation are available.
How To Catch A Russian Spy by fredslibrary
Title: HowTo CatchA Russian Spy
Author: Naveed Jamali
Jamali, Naveed (2015) and Ellis Henican.HowTo CatchA Russian Spy: The True Story Of An American Civilian Turned Self-Taught Double Agent. New York: Scribner
LCCN: 2014038826
E901.1.J25 A3 2015
Subjects
- Jamali, Naveed.
- Spies–United States–Biography.
- Spies–New York (State)–New York–Biography.
- Espionage–United States–History–21st century.
- Espionage, Russian–New York (State)–New York–History–21st century.
- TRUE CRIME / Espionage.
- BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs.
- POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Freedom & Security / Intelligence.
- United States–Foreign relations–Russia (Federation)
- Russia (Federation)–Foreign relations–United States.
Date Posted: April 23, 2015
Brief review in Intelligencer[1]
Selling thumb drives loaded with sensitive technical data to eager Russians, Jamali spent three years betraying his country. Or so it seemed. In fact, he was working for the FBI as a double agent, a remarkable accomplishment for a civilian who talked his way into the job right out of college for the experience he needed to become a navy intelligence officer. With undercover skills amassed from Bond movies and Miami Vice, he ferreted out the espionage activities of the Russian Mission to the UN, as tensions between Russia and America escalated. Included the use of coded messages on Craigslist and a Russian spy’s passions for Hooters’ Buffalo wings.
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How to Catch a Russian Spy: The True Story of an American Civilian Turned Double AgentHardcover – June 23, 2015
by Naveed Jamali (Author),
Ellis Henican (Author)
Ellis Henican (Author)
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